Jeff Vrabel: Road trip notes, thoughts and coffee-soaked memories

Jeff Vrabel

Monday

Dec 31, 2012 at 12:01 AMDec 31, 2012 at 7:43 AM

A trans-Southern-cross-Midwestern trek undertaken in an elderly small Honda SUV with two children.

Notes, thoughts and coffee-soaked memories from a 12-hour drive to my home state of Indiana for Christmas, a trans-Southern-cross-Midwestern trek undertaken in an elderly small Honda SUV with two children, ages 8 and 1.3, three suitcases, a plastic tub of assorted Christmas giftery, four Peanuts books, 3,500 diapers, two bottles of milk, several dozen interchangeable cords for charging Apple devices, something like seven different incarnations of Angry Birds, a tub of wipes and a back seat full of overflowing Christmas cheer and frequently spilled/thrown Honey Nut Cheerios.

• 8 minutes after departure: Found an NPR station playing Christmas polka music. The trip is starting out AMAZING.

• The 8-year-old is absorbed in Angry Birds, which is how he will spend at least nine hours of the drive each way. There is not only Angry Birds available to him but some sort of pork-related sequel called Bad Piggies, as well as Angry Birds Space, Angry Birds Star Wars, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Anna Karenina and Angry Birds Django Unchained, which is like regular Angry Birds except basically soaking in pig blood and random Statler Brothers.

• The 1-year-old is asleep. ASLEEP. This trip is a warm stroll in the sweet spring rain next to the last time we flew with the boy, a miserable airborne hellfest that singlehandedly ruined the travel of dozens of passengers on the Dulles-to-Albany-and-back connection and is 120% of the reason I am driving with the boys instead of taking the much more logical plane flight. I know this peace will not last, yet between the narcoleptic meatball and the 8-year-old flinging Chewbacca birds at the Death Star or what-the-hell-ever, I will take this opportunity to catch up on some Christmas polka music, which, by the way, is surprisingly festive. Christmas = always improved by the tuba.

• The 8-year-old is subsisting entirely on those organic boxes of chocolate milk, which is good, since they're only like eight dollars apiece. The 1-year-old is drinking milk and eating his books, so I think we're good.

• We have stopped for the night at a hotel in Knoxville, Tenn., which I've learned is at the same exit as Dollywood. SORRY FAMILY, GONNA BE A DAY LATE.

• We have also stopped for dinner at a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee, where I lead the crowd in a rousing series of pro-Obama chants and a roundtable discussion about why NASCAR is so boring. OK, I am making that up, but for real Cracker Barrel is the best place to stop on a road trip, because they probably have a train toy for your 8-year-old to amuse himself with, while you change your 1-year-old on one of those fold-down plastic change tables that feel at all times like they're going to collapse right off the wall. Also Cracker Barrel has corn bread and giant fireplaces, so win/win.

• My 8-year-old pouts at leaving three tees in the board; in a display of fatherly power I take over the game and promptly leave four. For this transgression the game calls me an "ig-no-ra-moose," which is pretty crappy thing for a game to say. I remind it that it lives jn a place that defines itself by its "dumplins," which is an egregious spelling error, even in Tennessee.

• The next morning, I take some bags out to the car and return to the breakfast area to find my 8-year-old at the coffee maker pouring a cup. "Um," I comment helpfully, to which he replies, "It's for you!" THE 8-YEAR-OLD IS GETTING ME COFFEE. SANTA IS WATCHING, AND HE IS MOST PLEASED WITH YOUR PROGRESS.

One week later.

• Spirits are high on the way back, although I detect a noticeable decrease in my interest in eating healthyish food, which is why I am currently at a joint Wendy's/KFC somewhere in Kentucky, for the sole reason that they have a cool-looking PlayPlace with a slide that's like five stories high that I kind of want to go in.

• Toys are crammed into a suitcase in the back, and every time we make a slight turn, the pressure makes one of them play the "Camptown Races" at volumes that are shockingly large for emanating from a plastic radio in a suitcase. This will be a problem when we go through the mountains of North Carolina, which essentially becomes a two-hour marathon of "Camptown Races" which, incidentally, makes you want to drive off the edge of the mountains in North Carolina.

• There is a lot more babyscreaming on the way home. The machine is breaking down. We're two hours from home. Considering letting the 8-year-old drive the rest of the way.

• My resolution for 2013: Save up for plane tickets. To hell with those other passengers.

Jeff Vrabel could totally go for some dumplins right now. He can be reached at http://jeffvrabel.com and followed at http://twitter.com/jeffvrabel.

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